Mars (+ Canals) (APOD 14 Jul 2008)

[Bubblecar]

Today's picture, Changes in Angular Mars - all images taken from Earth at the same magnification - reveals quite a lot of cobweb-like canals, especially in the third line of images. With today's CCD images, it's easier to understand how Lowell & the others got so carried away

[orin stepanek]

If early astronomers could see Mars lile we can now; Wow!

Orin

[apodman]

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080714.html

Mars never shows a crescent phase to Earthlings.

I remember a time in the world of sf when "Earthling" was considered a slur, replaced whenever possible by the politically correct "Terran".

"Earthling" evokes images of the "take me to your leader" era of alien contact, and so is used mostly in jest these days.

In some stories, Heinlein's space colonist characters referred to humans who chose to stay on Earth as "groundhogs".

quite a lot of cobweb-like canals, especially in the third line of images

I must need new eyeglasses.

[astrolabe]

Hello All,

I spent a great deal of time trying to find old pictures of Mars, say from the thirties or fourties, even the fifties and had absolutely no success at all. Is there anyone that knows of any links that will get me to something before the Viking Landers? I guess I should be researching the beginnings of astrophotography first but I just now thought of it.

[apodman]

trying to find old pictures of Mars ... no success at all

You're right. I had trouble too. These pictures aren't necessarily old, but there are a lot of them and they're mostly from earth-bound telescopes and not from NASA probes. Using the search engines, you'd think there was no Mars before NASA.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q ... ctor+photo

[astrolabe]

Hello apodman,

Perfect, thank you!